Easter on the Rio Grande

That sailor whose throat was just cuthas grown another throat, which grows

another cut. It’s an old saw: the bladethat goes around comes around, which

is why the sailor throws his voiceinto the sea, why I hold a space

in my glacial lungs for him,why I keep swimming.

Andrea Cohen directs the Blacksmith House Poetry Series in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Writers House at Merrimack College. Her next poetry collection, “Furs Not Mine,” will be published in April.